Quote Of The Day: “Everybody Has Samurai Swords.”

Two California martial-arts instructors (not shown here) are in jail, accused of kidnapping and using ‘samurai swords’ to torture an 18 year-old man in a September incident. Hmm…martial-arts instructors using martial-arts weapons to commit mayhem…how does that saying go?

“If you give a three-year old a hammer, every problem looks like a nail?”

Ston Lee, 34, and Skoth Ly, 33, were arrested Thursday on suspicion of kidnapping, torture and cultivating marijuana while a third man, Anthony Valdivia, 36, was arrested on suspicion of being a felon with a firearm, Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials said.

All three remained jailed Friday.

The brothers are suspected of kidnapping an 18-year-old man in Lancaster on Sept. 25 who was “tortured with lit cigarettes, cut with samurai swords and beaten” before being released, according to a statement from sheriff’s Deputy Miguel T. Ruiz.

Investigators did not immediately release a motive for the alleged attack.

However, on Thursday, detectives and members of burglary and robbery suppression teams served a search warrant on a home where they found Lee, Valdivia, a gun, drug paraphernalia and marijuana that was being grown indoors, Ruiz aid.

Skoth Ly was found at another home. Authorities said samurai swords were recovered there and at the brother’s Ston Skoth martial arts academy.

The sword-wielding duo were publicly defended by one of their first students (and later protege and employee) Anthony Martinez. He was shocked, shocked I tell you, to hear that his former senseis were accused of kidnapping, torture, and cultivation of marijuana.

“Mostly every martial arts (school) you go to, you’re going to see samurai swords. That’s part of your training, and part of what we practice in,” he said. “Everybody has samurai swords.”

Yeah, and everybody has them in the Kill Bill movies too. Which world were these guys living in?

I can’t find it now but there was one I read about a year ago where the blade in question was a wakizashi number with a 19-20″ blade and they called it a “samurai sword” and made it sound like some monster odachi.